Day 2: Hot spring showers in the newly opened Ba-Ian hotel close to Jin Shan. You get free coffee with your room, but we preferred making our own gong-fu cha! The Chinese tourists must have been thinking the world is upside down: we are drinking coffee and the Westerners are enjoying oolong tea!

Day 2: We drove along the coast to eat seafood in Aodi. Then we crossed the mountains to Pinlin, the capital of baozhong and jasmine tea. I even found the store my teacher, Teaparker, recommended and bought a cheap yi-xing teapot (20 USD).

Day 3: Taichung. Excellent Chinese food.

Day 4: We passed LuGu to go to ShiTou recreational park, just a few miles away from ShanLinSi. But I couldn't enjoy the surroundings or the tea... I had gotten sick and slept 24 hours. I must have been exhausted!

Day 5: Visit of Lugu farmer association's museum. I liked their pictures of how tea is processed. They showed each step how it was made in old times and nowadays in parallel. Then back to Taipei. We made a stop in Ying Ge, the ceramics capital of Taiwan, and bought more teaware.

I'm fine again, but the weather is terrible. Rain, rain and rain. Well, we won't be short of water to make tea anytime soon!

Monday, March 21, 2005

"TOKYO — The management training seminar at Ajinomoto Co. was nothing out of the ordinary until the participants were directed to a tiny house on the food company's campus here. There they took turns sitting on a tatami mat as a tea master, dressed in a red kimono, served them green tea.

It wasn't break time. It was a crucial part of the program: to teach foreign managers about Japanese ways and to groom non-Japanese for senior management(...)"

Learning how to make tea well can be an asset in Asia's business world! What counts for Japan, also counts for China, even if gong fu cha is not a ceremony per se.

Make it another reason (taste, health, relaxation, culture, beauty) why you should learn to become a tea master: the career booster. It may one day help you land a director/CEO job at a renowned Asian company!

Friday, March 18, 2005

Breaching the Web has made interesting calculations showing that in some instances the loose leaves she uses produce cheaper tea than tea bags: 4.8 cents for loose Tippy Orthodox GFOP Assam compared with 10.1 cents for Stash double chai spice. But when she uses USD 15 per 125 gr tea, which is her maximum, than loose tea ends up at approximately 15 cents a cup. For me, this shows again how tea bags have been able to create value for consumers in a hurry. And also how loose tea sellers are still not able to have consumers pay for the quality premium!

From a cost point of view, loose tea is bound to loose the competition against tea bags. Low quality leaves are all you need to tea bags! The secret lies than in the addition of fragrance to obtain a certain smell. The second added value for the average customer is the convenience of a tea bag: the mug becomes your tea pot. And the bag allows clever packaging and an even taste, season after season, year after year.

I never thought of comparing loose tea with tea bags! I'd rather compare my oolongs and pu-er with wine! They win all the time! Even at 50 USD for 125 gr, the cost per cup is only 50 cents (according to Breaching the Web's formula), a price only matched by low quality wines. And don't forget resteeping! Usually, the better the tea, the more often you can steep it. I make the experience all the time. Not only do I put less high quality leaves in my tea pot, but I can steep them more often. In this regard, I have found that pu-er will produce most tea (soup) for the same weight of dry tea leaves. Maybe I'll make the calculation some time...

Let's enjoy this cheap pleasure as long as it lasts. Thanks to globalization and capitalism, more and more Indians and Chinese can afford to buy their country's best teas. This and improved marketing (see my earlier post) will drive up prices, but also improve quality.

Wednesday, March 16, 2005

Pronounced Tscha Tschee, Cha Chi means the Chi (or Qi) of tea. A look at answers tells us that Chi is: the vital force believed in Taoism and other Chinese thought to be inherent in all things. The unimpeded circulation of chi and a balance of its negative and positive forms in the body are held to be essential to good health in traditional Chinese medicine.

For Western science, the concept of Chi is very elusive, but for tea lovers it may be more noticeable than the aforementioned health benefits. A good, well brewed tea gives the drinker more than a lasting smell and taste in his mouth. You may feel the Chi because your whole body feels warm and you start to sweat. And/or your mouth will be secreting saliva because it tells you it wants more of that tea. And/or your mind will feel crystal clear, as if you had breathed very pure and fresh air.

I can testify that I feel the first two effects with my young, wild pu-er and the last one with high altitude oolong. Another example that Chi may not be linked to a certain molecule in the tea, comes from fresh mountain water. Not everybody has drunk top gong fu cha, but I guess most of us have been hiking in the forrest or in the mountains. What do you feel when you drink from a source of fresh water after a tiring hike? I guess you can feel how this cool water reaches all your muscles, all your aching bones in your body! You were dehydrated and this water restored your body balance. That's one Chi effect!

So, to feel the Cha Chi, you don't have to be that thirsty. But you need to be in an attentive state of mind. Gong Fu Cha refers to the technique of making tea. When I observed how tea masters perform Gong Fu Cha, I was reminded of Qi Gong. The Qi Gong Institute tells us that "the word Qigong (pronounced chi kung) is a combination of two ideas: “Qi” means air, breath of life, or vital energy of the body, and “gong” means the skill of working with, or cultivating, self-discipline and achievement. The art of Qigong consists primarily of meditation, relaxation, physical movement, mind-body integration, and breathing exercises. Practitioners of Qigong develop an awareness of qi sensations (energy) in their body and use their mind to guide the Qi. When the practitioners achieve a sufficient skill level (master), they can direct or emit external Qi for the purpose of healing others."

Personally, I have found it useful to introduce some Qigong during my performance of Gong Fu Cha. I focus on what I do. I try not to rush. I make slow movements. I keep my environment clean and beautiful and breath slowly.

Answers gives more information on Qigong and particularly this criticism: "Much of the criticism of qigong involves its method of operation. Both traditional Chinese and Western medicine practitioners have little argument with the notion that qigong can improve and in many cases maintain health by encouraging movement, increasing range of motion, relaxation, blood oxygen saturation and improving joint flexibility and resilience. However, the benefits of qigong become much more controversial when it is asserted that qigong derives its benefits from qi acting as an external non-physical force. Most biologists and physicists are skeptical of these claims and see no reason to believe that qi exists in this manner.

Some proponents of qigong make the controversial claim that they can directly detect and manipulate this energy, but there are those who insist that they can only demonstrate this to fellow believers. Others, including many traditional Chinese practitioners, believe that qi can be viewed as a metaphor for biological processes, and the effectiveness of qigong can also be explained in terms more familiar to Western medicine such as stress management."

I think we better not fall from one scientific health belief to an external spiritual one. Let's just focus on enjoying tea! I have looked in vain for combined Gong Fu Cha and Qigong experience on the web. Maybe I have laid the basis for a new relaxation method, the Qigong Fu Cha!

- Breaching the Web: it is an informal collection of links the author found "interesting, maddening or compelling, usually accompanied by comments". Many of them are about tea. There is no clear focus or objective in this blog, apart the pleasure of writing and sharing personal thoughts and experience (that's what blogging is all about, no?). Another plus is the list of links to other tea blogs. You'll find Tea Masters and the next blog I'll review:

- Kathy's Digital Log is building an extensive list of tea reviews. This can be a useful tool for North American tea fans wondering what tea to buy next. Kathy uses a fixed format to review and rate each tea. It includes: tea name, Kathy’s rating, supplier, country of origin, price, tea form, what they say, brewing method and the review itself. This standard approach makes for easy comparison between teas.

My (improvement) advice would just be to further detail the tasting in: vision, smell, taste and overall. This would further clarify and standardize the most important part of the review.

Concerning the teas she picks, you can see that in the US people almost exclusively buy branded teas (see yesterday’s post) and are willing to pay good prices for few tea leaves. So, I’m wondering again, shouldn’t I be selling tea instead of blogging about it?

Monday, March 14, 2005

Last week, I have presented pictures of an old tea shop in Taichung. The tea I obtained there is priced very reaonably and sold in large quantity (look at the huge tea bags against the wall). The 'trick', if trick there is, to obtain a good tea is to talk passionately about the tea you love to drink with the shop owner. Doing so, you'll recognize if he's also a tea lover who wants to satisfy your thirst with what's best for you, or if he's only there to make a quick sale. If you are lucky, you'll not only have an enlightened chat, but also he will try to impress you with a tea fitting your taste (and your purse) and may even offer to taste it with you. If you don't like the tea, be honnest to say why and there are good chances he'll make a better one. If it is good, then ask for the price and buy half a jin (300 gr) or a jin (600 gr).

The sales technique of old tea shops is quite time consuming, as you can imagine, and you may end up avoiding a certain tea shop because you can't stand the owner. Or maybe the owner doesn't have the energy anymore to talk to new customers and prefers to sell to his old customers.

The other reason for the decline in tradtional Chinese tea shops has also to do with our lack of time to prepare gongfu cha. The invention of tea bags (with tea dust, the cheapest raw material) has brought tea convenience to the masses.

There is now a revival, a renewed interest for traditional tea in western countries and in Taiwan. Better taste and authenticity seem to be longing of the customers. But it is also due to better marketing.

Worth mentioning are Wang De Chuan (an English presentation here) and Union Tea. You'll see that the packaging and brand images are very well thought of. They sell tea in smaller quantities and market tea like a fine wine, not a commodity.

I recommend Union Tea's website. In its section about Taiwan tea. It has a quite complete, but not too long, description of what you need to know about Taiwan's tea, and it's in English! Unfortunately, you won't be able to order neither brand online from the USA or Europe. Their focus remains Asia. Too many western companies have marketed tea like this earlier then them. But when thinking about it, I'd rather buy fine (and expensive) Chinese tea from a Chinese store then from a western one... Or better, I'll continue exploring old tea shops in Taiwan!

Monday, March 07, 2005

Unusual snow this weekend on Taiwan's Central Mountains threaten this year’s spring harvest. It has already caused USD 200 million damages to mountain farmers (mostly tea producers). The lower production yield will translate in higher prices. The question mark remains the impact on taste. I will keep you updated when the spring oolong hits the market in early May.On the positive side, baozhong and low altitude oolong teas were not impacted.

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About Me

My name is Stéphane Erler. I live in Taiwan since 1996 and have been studying tea with Teaparker. He's a worldwide tea expert and author of over 30 tea books. The study of tea isn't just theoretical, but it's also rooted in daily practice. It's a path of continuous improvement. As my brewing technique improves I get access to better teas and better accessories. These things go hand in hand. My blog documents my learning since 2004. And I have set up an online tea boutique with my selection of top quality teas, accessories and tea culture.